Full disclosure. I am pretty sure I feel physical pain when my child is hurting. Sometimes the hardest part of parenting is watching your child get hurt – physically, mentally, emotionally and especially spiritually. Your natural instinct is to rush in and do whatever you can to immediately stop the pain your child is feeling. Unfortunately, that is not what is always best for your child.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your children is to allow them to feel the pain of consequences from making poor or ungodly choices. Some children will learn the lessons God has asked you to teach them, not from your godly instruction but by experiencing the pain that comes with disobedience. As a parent it can feel as if your heart is being ripped out, but there are some tricks to convincing yourself it is best to allow your child to stumble and even fall this time.
A trip to Monticello as a young girl led me to years of fascination with Thomas Jefferson. In the elementary education version of his life, Jefferson was a hero. A man who not only penned the Declaration of Independence, became President of the United States and greatly increased the size of our country, but also was well read, an inventor and travelled to places I dreamed of seeing. I wrote many a paper in my school years about his life.
Those shows featuring British nannies with lovely accents drive me crazy. If you have never seen one, the episode usually begin with a family whose children are totally out-of-control. The parents have evidently never heard of rules or consequences. In swoops expert nanny, who basically spends the remainder of the hour teaching the children and their parents how to make and enforce rules. The show usually ends with Nanny riding off into the sunset leaving behind a now nearly perfect family. (It can’t be truly perfect unless she had lived with them forever of course!)
Some older friends of mine experienced something interesting a few years ago. They were asked by women in their twenties and thirties to do a Bible study which also taught them how to cook. They had been so busy with school and activities during their years at home; no one had taught them how to cook. While it created an outreach opportunity for my friends, Christian parents may want to seriously consider teaching their children as many practical skills as possible.
One of the cornerstones of Christian education should be the teaching of empathy – especially in relation to serving others and sharing our faith. Instead our attempts, if any, seem to be closer to teaching pity. Empathy involves the ability to really and truly understand as much s possible what life is like for another person. Many times empathy is difficult. How can our children care about what happens in a country they may never visit?
by